Leading Abu Dhabi based brokerage and foreign exchange investment firm uses BT Radianz Services to offer access to the New York financial markets

BT today announced that it is making it easier for institutions with a presence in North America to access foreign exchange, metals and commodities markets via the OREX trading platform of leading financial services company, ADS Securities.

Abu Dhabi-based ADS Securities is the largest brokerage by volume in the Middle East and one of the fastest growing forex and investment companies globally. The company will use BT Radianz Services to allow its growing international investor client base to access its new trading hub in New York, which opened in October this year.

BT Radianz Services are designed specifically for the global financial markets industry. They include connectivity and hosting services between and within trading venues, as well as the BT Radianz Cloud — the world’s largest secure networked financial community consisting of thousands of banks, brokers, investors and application providers.

As part of its international growth plans, ADS Securities will leverage a range of Radianz Services and BT’s global partnership agreement with Equinix, the world's largest colocation provider, to create a new trading hub in Equinix’s Secaucus (New York) data centre campus.

BT will host ADS Securities’ OREX trading system — the first proprietary, multi-asset online trading platform to be commissioned and developed from the Middle East — in the Equinix Secaucus campus. In addition to co-location services, BT will also provide hosted infrastructure such as high performance servers and switches, as well as managed connectivity to the platform on ADS Securities’ behalf. This will allow the brokerage firm to offer investors a choice of how to access its services:

Via the BT Radianz Cloud, which links a community of thousands of financial services customers, accessing thousands of services and applications from more than 400 providers;

Via BT Radianz Connect, which provides Ethernet point-to-point and point-to-multipoint connectivity between and within major global financial data centres; and

Philippe Ghanem, vice chairman & CEO of ADS Securities, said: “New York is recognised as one of the most important financial markets in the world. So extending our trading opportunities to this major financial district is a natural extension of our firm’s strategy to bridge flows from Asia, to Europe and North America.”

This new agreement between BT and ADS Securities builds on an existing relationship between the two firms. In 2012, BT was selected by the brokerage firm to host its trading platform in London. The latest contract is another example of BT’s ‘Cloud of Clouds’ vision, which allows large organisations around the world to connect easily and securely to the customers, applications and data they need, independently of where they are hosted. Reflecting the Cloud of Clouds approach, BT will manage third party performance delivery and security on ADS Securities’ behalf, all under a single service level agreement.

“With its Cloud of Clouds vision, BT is helping us to make our OREX trading platform accessible to thousands of customers in the BT Radianz Cloud, link-up with third party data centres, and provide connectivity to investors via the internet and headquarters in the United Arab Emirates. We look upon BT as a trusted, reliable and experienced partner that can help us achieve our growth strategies,” said Mr Ghanem.

Ashish Gupta, president UK corporates and global banking & financial markets, BT Global Services said: “BT Radianz hosting and connectivity services are helping ADS Securities to grow its business and expand its global reach. By working with BT, the trading firm can now extend its client base and increase liquidity by leveraging an existing community of customers, both within the Equinix data centre ecosystem and in the BT Radianz Cloud. We are delighted to once again work with ADS Securities, combining talent, technology and tools with sector expertise to help the brokerage firm to realise its international ambitions.”

BT has a strong financial markets presence in North America. Its financial technology services are used by leading US financial services companies such as NYSE Euronext, DTCC, CME Group and Nasdaq OMX.

The BT Radianz Cloud community, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, includes over 1,450 member locations in North America, with more than 750 in the New York metropolitan area. BT also offers BT Radianz Hosting services from more than 20 data centres globally, where significant clusters of capital markets organisations are present, including six locations in North America.

BT’s technology vision: the Cloud of Clouds

The cloud is creating choices that never existed before. Through understanding those choices comes the confidence and the ability to harness change and do things that matter: get to market and innovate faster, keep costs down, and keep customers happy.

BT’s Cloud of Clouds vision is about allowing customers to connect easily and securely to the applications and data they need, regardless of where they’re hosted and where they are based.

As a cloud service integrator, we help customers move confidently and successfully along their cloud journey whilst minimising the complexity, risk and cost; to give them a choice of roadmaps that work for their organisation, in a way that will deliver the results they need.

We manage the whole process from network to cloud, we deal with third parties, deliver performance and security and simplify pricing, all under a single Service Level Agreement.

BT Radianz Cloud - Through a single, resilient and secure network connection, members can reliably access thousands of applications and services from more than 400 providers critical to the every-day running of the global financial sector. It offers high speed, high performance access to the OREX trading platform, and is designed to a “financial services-strength” service level of security and 100 per cent availability.

BT Radianz Venue Interconnect, offering direct links within the data centre anyone with a presence in the Equinix NY4 datacentre with direct managed or unmanaged links to the OREX trading platform for faster and more direct trading.

The internet: for lower cost access suitable for a low volume user, or for those not in a location where either of the other two solutions may exist. With managed in-built firewalls, security is assured.

For further information

Enquiries about this news release should be made to the BT Group Newsroom on its 24-hour number: 020 7356 5369. From outside the UK dial + 44 20 7356 5369. All news releases can be accessed at our web site: http://www.btplc.com/News